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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25919464">sense-memory</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/n7punk/pseuds/n7punk'>n7punk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Outside of the War - She-ra canon stories [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Actually let's go with Elaborating On Canon Compliant Information, Alien Biology, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Just an alien cat growing up with no one to tell her wtf is going on, Pining, also some side yearning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:35:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,298</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25919464</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/n7punk/pseuds/n7punk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Catra learns young that her unique traits are not welcome in the Horde - at least not if they cannot be weaponized. Over the years her purrs grow rare, she learns to sheathe her claws outside of battle, and she wraps her tail around herself to keep it out of harm's way. Sometimes, she still has to give in to her instincts.<br/>(Or, Catra's cat-like tendencies throughout the years and how thoroughly uncooperative the Fright Zone is about them.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adora/Catra (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Outside of the War - She-ra canon stories [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793227</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>534</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sense-memory</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I bring up Catra scent-marking in hmmmm every fic I write, and I almost always also bring up how Adora is <i>not</i> supposed to bring it up, so I thought I would finally write out the fic of that story, plus just a bunch of her other unique characteristics that I have also mentioned in my other fics.<br/>One of her cat-like tendencies you won’t see in this fic is her vision because I already have <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415800">multiple</a> <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535140">fics</a> about it, as well as it being referenced in others.<br/>I always love exploring different races/species in sci-fi and fantasy so this was a lot of fun to do. Largely based off some things I know about cats but I just wanted to explore some of Catra's differences that are in the show and some that aren't necessarily.<br/>CONTENT WARNING: Very brief implied/referenced self-harm. It is vague.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It starts the way most good things do in her life: with Adora. It also starts the way all bad things in her life do: with Shadow Weaver.</p><p>Catra has not been in the Fright Zone long. Weeks are not a concept to her yet, but it has only been a few. You could not call her more than a kitten at this age, unsure in this new, unfamiliar “home.” She does not remember coming here – she does remember the moment she left wherever she was before. A familiar woman’s scream, hot liquid landing on her skin, the rampage of battle as the house collapsed behind them.</p><p>Then she was here. With Adora. Adora names her, but she also calls her Kitty, and Friend, and simply <em>Soft</em> sometimes. Catra knows there used to be a brighter place than this, but Adora shines like her own light, making it easier in all the darkness.</p><p>Adora wants to play tag – that is how it starts. She goes running down the hall, slow on her two legs. Catra takes off on all fours, claws digging into the ground to give her traction at such high speed on the smooth metal flooring. She catches Adora easily, leaping at her shoulders and sending them sprawling, both of them laughing.</p><p>“<em>Catra</em>,” comes the admonishment from behind them. This is the first time she hears Shadow Weaver’s voice like this – the first time it turns her to ice. She was always afraid of the woman, fur standing on end and nose twitching with the electric smell of magic when she entered the room, but <em>this</em> moment is when she truly begins to <em>fear</em> her.</p><p>Catra’s claws had left gouges in the floor as she ran. They had created two tiny pinpricks of blood on Adora’s shoulders when she leaped at her. Neither of the girls noticed or minded, but Shadow Weaver did.</p><p>Catra receives her first real punishment, and though it is far from the first instruction she has received since arriving, she learns her first true lesson in the Fright Zone: bury your aberrations.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Catra’s first lesson turns out to have <em>exceptions</em>. She learns this a few days later when she gets pulled aside – pulled away from Adora as they play – and brought into some sort of medical office. She is poked, and prodded, and a man she has never met makes her extend and retract her claws as Shadow Weaver watches. Materials are brought to her, objects she does not recognize, and she is told to claw them, bite them, leaving scratches and fang marks that are measured and recorded.</p><p>She hisses as her lip is pulled back so the length of her fangs can be measured. The man tells Shadow Weaver he will have a specialized training plan made up within a week. Catra’s fur bristles as the woman admonishes her for her lack of cooperation and sends her away.</p><p>She tells Adora what happened when she gets back. Adora seems <em>excited</em> about it. She tells Catra she should be excited, getting special attention and training. It does not feel that way. Catra distantly remembers the feel of a familiar woman, with fur just like hers, holding her close even as her body falls to the ground. Catra has yet to see another person like her – like the two of them – in all of the Fright Zone. She feels like an exhibit, a resource to be bled dry of usefulness.</p><p>But Adora looks at her with shining admiration, and she decides that maybe she can be okay with that, if she has just one person who looks at her like this.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Catra’s fur is an <em>issue</em>. The Horde uniform clings to it like static, shocking her every time she changes. When they take their daily allotted shower block it comes nowhere close to be long enough for her to dry herself. Adora takes to wringing her own ponytail out like a rope so she can help run a towel over the fluff on Catra’s shoulders as Catra wrestles with her mane. Catra still almost always shows up to their next assigned block damp and irritable, itching and uncomfortable. Still, the care Adora shows her aberrations makes her chest feel warm, so she leans into the touch, feeling a rumble burst through her chest.</p><p>Adora likes to pet her fur when they curl up in her bunk together in the evenings. She strokes down the lengths of her arms, and the other recruits call them weird or jeer at Catra, but Adora tightens her grip on Catra’s arms to keep her from leaping after them with claws extended. Adora tells her she likes to do it, just as much as Catra likes the feel of it. When they are alone, Catra lets a rumble roll through her chest as Adora scratches under her jaw.</p><p>Catra’s uniform still clings tightly to her damp fur, and it still shocks her every time she pulls it on or off, but when Adora runs her hands over Catra’s arms and marvels at how <em>soft</em> she is, Catra does not mind her differences quite as much.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Adora is the one who teaches her the differences in her sight. Adora is the <em>only</em> one who ever learns the differences there. This difference she can hide. She does not have to wear it on her skin, have to have it turned into a weapon for or against her.</p><p>She still fears it.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Catra is not the only cadet to deal with teething. The humans are passed it by the time she arrives, but she and a few of the other races have yet to get their adult fangs. Catra finds broken off bits of machinery and cleans them in the bathroom sink, gnawing on them, <em>through</em> them, leaving shallow scratches from her fangs. It hurts, but it feels better, but it <em>hurts</em>.</p><p>One night Adora reaches down in their bunk and tugs gently on her tail in the way only she can get away with. Catra raises her head, ears twitching, and peers at her questioningly in the darkness. Adora just motions for her to come up to the head of the bed. Catra does so gladly, prowling her way up the mattress, claws catching on the blanket just a bit as she goes. She settles to lie down beside Adora, blinking at the other girl in the darkness. Adora reaches out, offering her arm.</p><p>“I could hear you grinding your teeth from up here,” she offers in explanation, voice soft and kind. Every part of Catra’s body wants to reach out and take the offer.</p><p>“I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispers back, claws digging into the mattress with her effort to be still. The memory of scratches through metal is sharp in her mind. Adora just offers her a soft smile.</p><p>“You won’t,” she promises.</p><p>Catra does, but not badly. Adora does not mind when she bites down too hard. She always follows her responding wince with a soft, reassuring smile, silently urging Catra to continue and take what she needs. Catra learns to keep the pressure light and gentle. She learns that mouthing along the soft forearm offered to her is just as satisfying as digging her teeth into blunt metal, and it does not leave her with new pains to replace that ones it eases. She leaves pinprick bruises from her fangs, even some curved lines from the blunt of her other teeth, but blood only wells up occasionally in a few spots. She does not have to control herself for too long – Catra’s teething only lasts a few months. When it is over, the worst Adora has to show for it is the occasional small, round scar and quickly fading bruises. She doesn’t seem to mind, just happy she could ease her friend’s aches a bit.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Catra’s purr she does not need to be told to stop – in fact, Shadow Weaver probably wishes she had less control of it. That is why Catra tries to wrangle it from the time she is a kitten. Some differences are celebrated in the Horde – her claws and her fangs – but weaknesses never are. Letting herself have such an obvious in to her emotions? That could have fatal consequences.</p><p>She learns to control her purr young. She learns to shove it down for most emotional responses, just like she learns to bury the emotions, but biological instincts pose a bigger challenge. They take her longer to master, especially when she is in heightened emotional states. Despite all her time and dedication, the low rumbling still slips through, sometimes. Usually it is Adora’s fault.</p><p>Catra learns young to control her ears despite the way they want to raise and fall with every emotion. She never gets perfect control, but she lessens her responses, pulling her emotions close to her chest. Still, when she does get emotional, controlling her biological instincts is <em>hard</em>. She kneads her pillow, the thin mattress, even Adora, her claws flexing with every repetitive motion. When she gets caught off guard or feels threatened, her fur bristles, tail bushing and lashing behind her. When she feels anger, fear, <em>emotion</em> boiling through her, she turns to the nearest surface she can get away with marring and <em>tears</em> her claws through, the grating sensation easing her fragile nerves. Sometimes there is no surface – sometimes she has to use herself.</p><p>Shadow Weaver calls them her <em>base impulses</em>. Tells her that she could be <em>useful</em> if she applied herself and learned self-restraint. If she would not let herself be dominated by such animalistic behaviour. Catra has to bite down a growl as the woman sneers down at her.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Catra’s tail is the subject of many <em>incidents</em> over the years. As a child, the other recruits would pull it. She would retaliate with claws and growling. She would often get punished if she actually landed a scratch, but the other kids learned to leave her tail alone. All of them except Adora. Adora never pulled her tail, though - she would stroke it, Catra returning the affection by twining it around her fingers as they worked. Catra would graze it along her arms, waist, legs as a sign of casual affection no one can call her on, not really. She would never dare to do it in front of Shadow Weaver, but in their bunk, or the locker room, or merely as she walks past Adora no matter the location, Catra can safely reach out with her tail and see the way a smile lights on Adora’s face in response.</p><p>Adora sometimes gently squeezes or tugs on her tail to silently get her attention, but it never hurts when Adora does it. If anyone else touches Catra’s tail without her reaching out first, it sets her on edge, causing her to growl and hiss. Adora pets her with careful attention, just enough pressure to feel good. She discovers that scratching at the base of it practically melts Catra, making her relax as her traitorous purr rolls forward.</p><p>When they are teenagers, Catra has a particularly trying day with Shadow Weaver forcing her to help with some magic ritual that needed a <em>delicate aromatic blend</em>, and Adora tries to help calm her by scratching at the base of her tail as they curl up beside each other on their platform. Catra’s entire body heats and after almost two years of silence, her purr springs forward. Adora turns to her in shock as the fever in her body climbs higher.</p><p>Catra <em>flails</em>, claws flying as she scrambles to get away. The heat dulls as she crawls backwards away from Adora, the other girl calling after her in worried confusion. Catra is <em>panting</em>.</p><p>“Don’t – do that again,” she orders, and something in her wide-eyed panic must get through to Adora, because she pulls back her reaching hand.</p><p>“Did I hurt you? I thought I was being careful enough,” Adora asks, too much concern, too caring, too <em>pushy</em>. Adora knows she is sensitive there, Catra knows she is sensitive there, it just seems the <em>kind</em> of sensitive has changed.</p><p>“No. Just- don’t, okay?” Catra practically begs, edging around Adora as she slowly circles back closer to the other girl, still staying just out of arm’s reach.</p><p>“Does it not feel good anymore?” Adora asks, face still pinched. Catra <em>stares</em> at her, blush rising higher. Adora looks back at her, questioning and confused. After <em>several minutes</em> of silence, realization dawns on Adora’s face as she puts two and two together.</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“Yes, Adora, <em>oh</em>,” Catra growls, tucking her knees in against her chest and wrapping her arms – and tail – around her legs. Adora flushes, but she drops the subject.</p><p>They are not as careless as they were as kids – not that they were ever <em>carefree</em> – and they do not often just lay down together, Adora slowly petting along Catra’s limbs while she tries to force her purr down. When they do, Adora never pets her back below her shoulder blades again after that day.</p><p>A selfish, nasty part of Catra wishes she never said anything. A foolish part of her wishes that despite her having done so, Adora had continued.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Catra’s scent-marking is one of her best-kept secrets. As far as she can tell, no one else in the Horde can pick it up. She surely would have gotten a visit from Shadow Weaver, otherwise.</p><p>After Adora helps her accidentally discover the differences in her sight, they test all her senses. They realize she can see far better in the dark than Adora, a useful trait for when they sneak out at night. Adora’s range of hearing seems like a joke to Catra, at first. At first she wonders if Adora is downplaying her abilities to make Catra feel better about her sight – but after some careful testing involving an unwitting Kyle, Catra realizes she is telling the truth.</p><p>Her sense of smell she always knew was superior. How most of the Fright Zone’s inhabitants can stand its smog and pollution is a mystery to her. Whenever she is outside, she seeks a high perch where the air is a bit easier to breathe. The view does not hurt either.</p><p>Catra has a lot of ways to mark things as <em>hers</em>. She licks Adora in front of Lonnie one day when they are kids, proving Adora is <em>her</em> friend, not Lonnie’s. Shadow Weaver hears about it – she quickly makes it clear to Catra that she is not to continue that particular <em>base behaviour</em>.</p><p>Catra could leave claw and bitemarks. She often does, if on accident. She also does not want to <em>scar</em> Adora. She just wants Adora to know she is <em>hers</em>. Not Lonnie’s, or Kyle’s, or Rogelio’s, or Shadow Weaver’s-</p><p>Actually, they are all Shadow Weaver’s. The thought makes her growl, claws kneading at the air uselessly. She grabs Adora’s wrist and pulls her from the locker room where she had been silently having her spiraling crisis. Adora was in the middle of conversation with a group of cadets that are not even part of their squad. She protests in surprise as Catra leads her away, but she follows reluctantly. Catra knows it won’t last long – that she will pull away and demand to know what is going on.</p><p>Catra pulls them into a dark nook between some machines, surrounded on three sides. She swivels her ears, keeping her superior hearing on the lookout for intruders coming to interrupt them.</p><p>“Catra? What’s going on?” Adora asks, voice a whisper of excitement, now. She seems to have picked up on Catra’s somewhat pleased air, a contentment already running through her body just at the <em>knowledge</em> of what she is going to do.</p><p>“This is a secret, okay?” Catra whispers to her, placing her hands on Adora's shoulders as she steps closer. Adora was already leaned back against the wall in the tight space, but now she practically flattens to it. Her cheeks are starting to darken, but she holds Catra’s eyes and nods, seemingly too nervous for words.</p><p>Catra leans forward and drags her cheek along Adora’s jaw, a content purr rumbling forward immediately at the action. Adora gasps – at her closeness, in surprise, maybe at the sudden reappearance of the purr she has been fighting the last few years. Adora holds completely still, letting Catra run her cheek under her chin and even along the side of her neck.</p><p>Catra starts to pull back and feels her purr stutter out. It feels <em>wrong</em> to stop, so she doesn’t, leaning down and marking along Adora’s shoulder, too, before she manages to pull herself back.</p><p>She leans back against the opposite wall, despite the way it only gives a few inches of distance between them in this cramped space.</p><p>“You, uh, used to do that when we were kids,” Adora says, a bit dumbly, staring into Catra’s eyes again like they hold the secret to defeat the Rebellion for good. Catra rolls her eyes, fond at her best friend’s idiocy. She did, it is true. She stopped around the same time as the innocent petting sessions did. She still marks their bunk regularly, but that could just be written off as her nuzzling into the sheet.</p><p>“I stopped when I realized what it was,” she explains, turning to duck her head out from the corner. She knows no one is coming, but – she just needs to check. She retreats back against the wall and finds Adora’s blush has somehow risen.</p><p>“And what is it?” she asks, breathless. She looks <em>hopeful</em> for some reason.</p><p>“Marking. Only I can pick it up. You- you can’t tell anyone. Shadow Weaver will kill me if she finds out I marked you as mine,” Catra tells her, fidgeting nervously.</p><p>“I’m yours?” Adora asks, and now she sounds <em>smug</em>. Catra narrows her eyes at the shit-eating grin that is spreading across her best friend’s face. She scoffs, quickly looking away so as to not give her the satisfaction.</p><p>“You’re my best friend and you would be useless without me. So yeah, you’re mine. You and the other recruits just have to deal with it,” Catra sniffs, voice dismissive and uncaring. It does not matter – Adora beams at her words.</p><p>After that, it becomes a thing – sometimes. Catra tries not to do it. She tries to fight her <em>base instincts</em>, not because Shadow Weaver wants her to, but because she fears discovery. Still, sometimes when the jealousy of seeing Adora with the other recruits becomes too much, she will mark her, pulling her away to a secluded corner immediately or waiting until they are in the darkness of their bunk that night. It soothes her nerves, to see Adora interacting with others but smelling like <em>her</em>, knowing that <em>Adora</em> knows she smells like <em>hers</em> and that she is okay with that.</p><p>Adora always seems amused and pleased by it, even when they reach their teenage years and Catra tries to fight it harder, knowing it has become more loaded. She tells herself that Adora just finds this quirk of Catra’s funny – that she is not amused by Catra’s lack of control. That Adora does not think she is letting her <em>base instincts</em> get the best of her. The niggling doubt in the back of her mind still leads to her doing it less-and-less, hissing in embarrassment on the few occasions Adora brings it up.</p><p>She tells her to drop it, that she cannot talk about it in case Shadow Weaver hears about it. In truth, she is terrified that Adora is planning to tell her to stop completely – that even the marks every few months have grown to be too much.</p><p>She is terrified Adora will say she does not want to be <em>hers</em> anymore.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hoo boy welcome to Headcannon Corner. A <i>lot</i> of them slipped in here.<br/>EDIT: I wrote a sequel to this with Catra embracing her differences after the show. It is the next work in the "instincts - miniseries" this work is a part of. Just click next work to read it!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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